So, with all due respect to the poster and in support of the goal of re-examining the historic record around same-sex relationships of all types, I think it’s important to understand the historic context in which records like this give us glimpses of possibilities. 1/+ https://twitter.com/jackiantonovich/status/1143158516057665536

It has become popular these days to look at *any* same-gender pair who were clearly emotionally connected and who shared significant parts of their lives with each other and jump to the conclusion that they were a romantic and/or erotic couple. 2/+

But that overlooks the historic context in which the experience of close same-sex bonds, and the expression of those bonds in ways that today would be interpreted as sexual, was normalized and unstigmatized. Were many of those pairs *also* romantically/erotically bonded? Yes. 3/+

Were many of them enjoying deep, long-lasting, intense friendships that did not have romantic and/or erotic components? Also yes. And both poles could look identical in terms of the public face of the relationship. 4/+

One of the reasons that same-sex pairs who *did* enjoy romantic//erotic relationships were able to share their lives openly, often with the support and approval of friends and relatives, was because intense friendship was not equated with non-normative sexuality. 5/+

Rather than fasten upon every example of two women or two men in history celebrating a very intense friendship openly in public and doing the wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing suggesting that they only possible explanation is that they were sexually involved, 6/+

it would be lovely people learned more about the rich and layered history of same-gender social relations, and how patterns of homosocial bonds created both a context and a cover for those couples who did enjoy homosexual bonds. 7/7

P.S. Read The LHMP Blog